Behold the noiseless sailboat and canoe, That slowly glide upon the glassy lake, Which wedded seems to heaven’s lofty blue, And every silver cloud within its wake; The lonely youth dreams as he moves along, And who can tell what wondrous dreams they be, Fit theme, I ween, for any poet’s song, Of sadness or of gladsome reverie.
There also sail the lover and his lass, They laugh and chat, and have a gleeful time, For them the golden moments swiftly pass, Since they are living in life’s summer clime, To them sweet nature’s beauty doth exist As background only to their happiness, And heav’n the blue-eyed Harriet has kist, Because their own true love they dare confess.
And o’er the water strains from Lohengrin Come floating from the Grecian-pillard stand, And add enchantment to the charming scene, The wedding-scene of sky and sea and land,-- The hymeneal of youth’s dreams of life, Of hearts aglow with love’s sweet fervency, Of thousand souls who here forget their strife, And for an hour their wonted misery.
I wandered to-day in an institute, A wonderful palace of art, And this I can say in spirit and truth, It was a delight to my heart, To see how the masters of ages past Have found a place in this shrine, Till I came to a room, methinks ’twas the last, Which the Cubist’s contortions confine.
A disgrace, I said, to allow in this place, What lunatic homes should adorn, An insult to art and the human race, Of spirits degenerate born, A meaningless daub, a horrid display Of colors and lines and all, But then to myself I also did say: May be ’tis the age--and its soul.
A wicked word it was this to say, As I left for the congested street, And followed the masses which made their way To a place where ten thousand did meet Three times a day, to be edified With burlesque, in Jesus name, And painfully in my soul it cried: “The Cubist again, just the same!”
I glanced at a paper at hour of sleep, And found a whole page about bards, Who gained a renown by a single leap, With something which all art discards, Again I said: ’tis the Cubist’s age, A prophet is he after all, Of the church and the stage and the printed page, Of the age that has bartered its soul.
Full thousands of leagues over land, over seas, I travelled, for two things to find: From work, and its routine, a needed surcease, And knowledge, to quicken the mind.
